Just Me? Or, Do Waterslides Really Hurt?

I've been to WhiteWater in Atlanta, pre-SF buyout. On their body flumes, I could feel the joints but they never hurt... I actually kind of liked them because you could judge your speed with them.

One thing I would do is just sit up, legs forward, down them. No one griped at me whenever I did this (most of the time riding). When I did lay down, I never let my shoulders touch the flume, because that part of my body seemed to hurt the most when hitting "bad spots."

The only other water park I've been to used the concrete-and-mat system, and I hated it. Irregularities and rougness of the concrete seemed to slow you down. But at least the bumps made it feel a little more "out of control."

But really, it sounds like some of yall have overly delicate heinies.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

I agree that they are very painful.

That is what I'm always worried about w/ waterslides.

Water Safari in Old Forge Adriondacks has a section with 4 body slides. 2 go about 50 feet down racing with about 15 flat at the end. 2 others are enclosed and make a large s turn before the pool.

Heres the catch: you fall about 8-10 feet into the pool.

And when going about 25-30 mph it KILLS your back

I always sit up so it doesn't hurt my back but they yell at me.

Amazingly, although most hurt my back, the toilet bowl one's I'm usually fine with.

It isn't the heinies, m'man, it's the back, and it gets torn up! blood gushing everywhere, huge marks as if you were whipped with an electical cord! It's nuts.

I hope Hurricane Mountain's new bodyslides at Worlds of Adventure are much smoother, as well as Cedar Point's... because otherwise I'll still go on them... but I'm going to just sit up on the twisty ones and let them b*tch at me.

The slides at The Beach are definately easier on the back than those at PKI. I think they use some kind of filler in the seems, and The Beach is just better at maintaining it. I love to ride speed slides, but I normally can't ride more than once unless they are extremely well maintained.

In the small town of Windsor Califfornia is my home waterpark of Windsor Water Works. They have one "speed" slide which I have found to be very painfull or very fun. It is incredibly fun when the water level is high and faster you go, the less pain I seem to have. In fact, I have no pain.

The slides at Soak City in Palm Springs are REALLY great and only the speed slides hurt (kinda) when you hit the water on the splashdown because of the intese speed you are traveling at, yet those seem to be my favorite slide type.

To answer your question, they can make my back a little red, but never bleed or even to a horribly painfull point. All in all I love waterslide, especially the body slides.

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I've been to a great deal of water parks, and yes, body slides can be painful. I used to have a piar of trunks that seemed to have grip on it and I could never slide down a slide, but I have since bought myself an 'extra slippery' pair. The Stingray Wet Slides @ SFWoA give me a beating. I don't find them fun at all. I am looking forward to those huge new slides on Hurricane Mountain however. Has anyone been on Shark Attack yet? It's a tube slide and last weekend was supposed to be the opening weekend. I know it was cold outside, but was still wondering. As for Hurricane Mountain, the SF official site has posted some more informaiton about the slides.

"Hurricane Mountain

Number of Slides: 7
Height of Tower: 100 feet tall
Length of Slides: 496.3', 488.3', 509.9', 386.3', 289.7', 284.7', 374.5'
Slide Designs: 4 inner tube slides (rafts), 3 body slides (no rafts) 4 fully enclosed slides, 1 completely open slide, 2 that are half-enclosed.
Speed: Speeds up to 27 mph
Colors: Yellow, Blue, Orange, Pink, Purple, Turquoise, Green Manufacturer: Whitewater West Industries
Claims to Fame: Largest water slide complex in a North American theme park. Tallest slide tower in Ohio at 100 feet tall. Fastest water slide complex ever designed by manufacturer, near 30 mph. Slides are one-half mile long when laid end-to-end.

Shark Attack

Number of Slides: 3
Height of Tower: 46 feet tall
Length of Slides: 398.69', 345.70', 354.68'
Slide Designs: 3 open body slides (no rafts)
Colors: Green, Blue, Black
Manufacturer: Whitewater West Industries Claim to Fame: Shark Attack slides are part of the largest expansion ever to Hurricane Harbor water park. "

Sorry to wander off topic. Body slides give you a beating and arching your back helps. You will get an out of control feeling however and may be liable to getting plowed on a sharp turn if there is any. (or the skipping some of you have talked about!)

I was on Shark Attack, and yes... I was insane enough to try the slides. I travelled 3 hours to the park, so I wanted to make the most out of it... so on Monday, I tried their new tube slides... and they are intense! Intensly fun... They got some nice wooshes from side to side as it changes direction, and each slide is different, but all in all, they are also vaguely similar to 'Cuda Falls at SFDL.

The water was worse than hose water. I could swear I saw the penguins escaped their cages to bathe in this water, but since the sun dried me off quickly, I was able to take a couple more runs.

I don't really find body slides too painful. There is the occasional one that will have something lining the bottom right where your spine is. Those are very uncomfortable.

I typically goto PKD's WaterWorks, but I don't have many problems there. Most of the rides are fun and painless. At the bottom on their highest speed slide, that can be, kinda painful because of the water rushing up and skidding, and then a massive wedgie! Just pick it out when you get to the Wave Pool! :)

I find Water Country USA to be the best Water Park I've been too. I've been to Blizzard Beach, but you either had to take massive amounts of steps to get to each ride, or take the chairlift, which easily had an 30 minute wait. I find that park to be not made to accomidate many people. There should be 2 or 3 Ski Lifts. There is only one set of stairs to climb to get to every slide there, and its a ton of stairs.

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Free Falls on Drop Zone: 5!
Batwing Flights: 7!
Superman: Ride of Steel Airtime-age: 10!

While we are on the subject of waterslides, the one thing that really bothers me is that most parks don't allow swimsuits with rivets in them. Guess how hard it is to find swimsuits without rivets in them? My friend waited over an hour with me to ride Pipeline Peak at PKD only to discover that he had rivets on his Old Navy trunks. Of course the lifeguard didn't have any kind of apparatus to remove the rivets. Luckily a lady had a set of keys that did the trick. They did have warning signs at the entrance (yes, I agree he should've looked before entering the line), but how many people go shopping for a swimsuit based on whether it has rivets or not? I'm guessing this is so the fiberglass doesn't get cut up which could inflict even "more" pain.------------------
If you have a problem with clones, the solution is real simple—Stop traveling.

Waterslides can hurt, especially when they are new. I remember going on Water Country USA's body slides (which I would also like to second as the best waterpark in the country followed very closely by my homepark of Noah's Ark) about ten years ago and they were painful, now they arent bad at all. Also Slidewinder @ Noah's Ark is not painful at all and it is really old.

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Summer 03-CP, HP, Canobie, SFNE, SFWOA, and SFGAm.

Waterslides can hurt, especially when they are new. I remember going on Water Country USA's body slides (which I would also like to second as the best waterpark in the country followed very closely by my homepark of Noah's Ark) about ten years ago and they were painful, now they arent bad at all. Also Slidewinder @ Noah's Ark is not painful at all and it is really old.

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Summer 03-CP, HP, Canobie, SFNE, SFWOA, and SFGAm.

time to enlighten my opinion... yea alot of body slides do work, and i think in some of those cases the managers have introduced mats. the main problem is, i agree, the joints between the sections of the tube. as for concrete slides, they only hurt when you hit your head on them or do a 'flying start', i have never seen a concrete slide longer than 50ft. As for rafts and mats, i love them.

Anyway, while on holiday in cyprus, we visisted the waterpark, which is really good, i think they had the first toillete bowl slide (like the new one at holiday world i think), and they have this prototype which gives you a really decent drop and then you rise back up again vertically, you fall back down and go a different way, over a small hill andinto the'pool'. lol.

as for arching your back on slides, it does make you go faster, but on some slides, you sometimes come off with two red spots where your bones stick out on your back.

And as for bouncing like a stone across the pool:), i can only ever pull it off when i'm going really fast on a mat. hehehe.
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Colossus [1]
Nemesis: Inferno [6]

I also don't find them really painful. On some of them though the water is just rushing into my face and that can be a little uncomfortable but that doesn't always happen and if it is really choking me I just hold my breath.

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-Sean Newman

Good God how do you sit up on body slides? Pipeline Peak at Carowinds would KILL you if you sat up. The extreme changes in direction at very high speeds almost give you a concussion when youre laying down, how could sitting make that problem any better? And about the shoulder thing, I do that on my Country Club water slide but I could not imagine wanting more speed on something like Pipeline. There is already enough speed and water in your face to prevent breathing.

sitting up stops the red marks on the back, and on the large kamikazi slides it stops you from bangning your head, but i don't like doing that

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Colossus [1]
Nemesis: Inferno [6]

SFWoARules! said:
I used to have a piar of trunks that seemed to have grip on it and I could never slide down a slide...

I currently have this problem - and it is absolutely terrible. Its to the point where I won't even go on body slides because I end up having to push myself down the entire slide.

The only body slide that I have ever experienced pain on was Bomb Bay at Wet 'n Wild in Orlando. That is because there is too much water in the splash down section and I literally Bounced OUT of the slide and hurt my back. wound up sideways in the slide.

I am a lifeguard at the Hard Rock hotel in Orlando, and when people complain I tell them to arch up on their shoulder blades and ankles. reduces pain and makes you go faster.

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I am one.
I am Turbo.

Only have done two body slides, one at Adventure Island Tampa and the other at Wet N' Wild. A lil painful on the back. However the worst pain I ever experienced was on a tube slide at Blizzard Beach Orlando, tube flipped on a bend throwing me and my fiance' up in the air and myself face first on the slide, breaking my occular bone and causing a nasty black and blue and bloody eye for weeks... ouch!!!! I passed out shortly after and woke up when I hit the bottom of the pool you end up in.... oh what fun! lol!

Toilets bowls are hell and heaven.

First for the heaven. You gather quite some speed before entering the signature bowl, and that's extremely fun. So is the bowl. It's so cool. Sometimes you actually spin around the bowl while rotating yourself. I have had FIVE circles around the bowl once. The most exciting part is the drop to the well through the tiny hole. Sometimes you end up head first, other times you go legs first. ADDICTING!!

Now for hell. The rides great for the first five rides. You can bare to lay down. Then it feels like knives in your back. No red marks, though. Sitting up on it is really no fun. Then the next day your neck is in pain because of those Gs. So damn painful.

Summit Plummet is another example of "knives in your back". But they don't leave lasting pain. It's one of the greatest slides out there.

The greatest? Also at Blizzard Beach. The Slush Gusher. It's got the best slide airtime of them all. You've got to try it. It's the greatest cross between longer slides and body slides. But it's great because it doesn't go straight down. More fun.

Some slides are just plain forceful. My local slide had to be re-profiled. It used to have a double helix, but now they are opposite directions, so you don't gain as much speed. It's famous for all the kids standing next to it during adult swim. People who slide down on shoulders and ankles ride up the side sending loads of water off the side. Kids eat (drink?) it up.

But it's still forceful, as it always turns me backward on the final dump into the pool. Our pool has gone from olympic to water park.

I love water slides, don't you?
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120+420=TTD

*** This post was edited by swimmerkev 5/29/2003 10:32:44 PM ***

I rode those water slides in Myrtle Beach, SC. You know the one's that are the tallest and longest in the country or something like that, I know there in my guinness book. Anyway, the force of the water and nothing to do with the pain for me. It was the little dent (crest, whatever) where two pieces of track were put together that hurt. They didn't hurt at first, but as I sped up, to around 34 mph, (it's in the book), it began to hurt. Even though the pain was there it didn't hurt enough to last after I got off the water slide. I actually rode it about 20 times that day. The fun factor, maybe becuase it's completely enclosed and you can't see anything, but the pain never stopped me from going on it. There was a little more pain once I reached the bottom, and I was greated by a large amount of water at the bottom of the slide, that sent my swimming trucks for a nice hike up north, but other than that, I don't think waterslides are that painful.